Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 21, 1896 - Miscellanies, Volume IV

AN AUTUMN EFFECT
concluded beyond question that this must be a
lunatic who stood laughing aloud at a white donkey
in the placid beech-woods. I was sure, by her face,
that she had already recommended her spirit most
religiously to Heaven, and prepared herself for the
worst. And so, to reassure her, I uncovered and
besought her, after a very staid fashion, to put me
on my way to Great Missenden. Her voice trembled
a little, to be sure, but I think her mind was set
at rest ; and she told me, very explicitly, to follow
the path until I came to the end of the wood, and
then I should see the village below me in the
bottom of the valley. And, with mutual courtesies,
the little old maid and I went on our respective
ways.
Nor had she misled me. Great Missenden was
close at hand, as she had said, in the trough of a
gentle valley, with many great elms about it. The
smoke from its chimneys went up pleasantly in the
afternoon sunshine. The sleepy hum of a threshing-
machine filled the neighbouring fields and hung
about the quaint street corners. A little above, the
church sits well back on its haunches against the
hill-side — an attitude for a church, you know, that
makes it look as if it could be ever so much higher
if it liked ; and the trees grew about it thickly, so as
to make a density of shade in the churchyard. A
very quiet place it looks ; and yet I saw many
boards and posters about threatening dire punish-
ment against those who broke the church windows
or defaced the precinct, and offering rewards for the
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